


And You Were So Incredibly Beautiful

by Unforgotten



Series: Father of the Bride AU [2]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Canon Disabled Character, Depression, Established Relationship, Haircuts, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Past/Implied MPreg, unemployment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-22 12:19:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/pseuds/Unforgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the fall of 1991, Charles and Erik finally start getting their act together.</p><p><b>part 1:</b> Charles hasn't cut his hair in a year or so, ever since the shooting...and he really, really needs to.<br/><b>part 2 (added 10/28/13):</b> Charles and Erik haven't cleaned their apartment in a while...and they really, really should.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And You Were So Incredibly Beautiful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles hasn't cut his hair in a year or so, ever since the shooting...and he really, really needs to.

One day, Erik glances at Charles, and before he can stop himself, he bursts out with, "You look like a hippie."

"What?" Charles says.

"You look like a hippie. You need a haircut."

It's true: Charles hasn't gotten his hair cut since before the shooting. Erik keeps waiting — and waiting, and waiting — for him to get it done, and while he waits, Charles' hair keeps getting longer. Erik hasn't seen Charles' ears in months. He's forgotten what they look like.

"There's nothing wrong with my hair," Charles says. "I don't know what you're going on about."

*

Charles is obviously in denial, so the next day, Erik sets out to prove it. He makes a trip to Goodwill and flips through the racks of shirts until he finds the perfect thing, a lilac and magenta shirt that screams 'I'm from the seventies. And by the way, I'm really high right now.' (It's actually a really great shirt. Erik loves it. He's absolutely going to steal it back from Charles when he's done making his point.)

When he gets home, he tosses the shirt to Charles and says, "Put this on."

Charles raises an eyebrow at him, and he holds the shirt out in front of him like it's going to bite him, but he does it.

"Okay, now smile," Erik says, grabbing the Polaroid camera off the counter and aiming it at him.

Charles rolls his eyes. "Really?"

"Just do it," Erik says. "Come on."

Charles doesn't smile. He gives Erik a pointed look instead. Erik hesitates, then decides it's good enough and clicks the button to take the picture before Charles can roll his eyes again.

He waits for it to develop, glances at it, then hands it to Charles.

Charles takes it and stares at it for a long time. His face twists up and he looks like he's going to cry.

Erik wants to kick himself. He should have known better than to make fun of the way Charles looks. Sure, his hair is long and greasy, he's thin and pale...but he's had such a hard time lately, and he's been so depressed; he's entitled to look like a bum if he wants to without some jerk giving him a hard time.

"Look, I shouldn't have said anything. Let's just forget about it," Erik says.

Charles glances at him, then back at the picture. His mouth twitches, and his shoulders start to shake, and then he's laughing, a loud, crazy laugh that doesn't sound like him at all. Not that Erik really remembers how Charles sounds when he's laughing all-out — Charles' laugh resembles Charles' ears in that neither has been seen anywhere around here, not for a while now.

Erik can't help but grin at Charles stupidly the whole time he's laughing.

When Charles finally calms down, he wipes his eyes and, still chuckling, says, "All right, you win. We really should do something about my hair."

"Okay, great," Erik says. "I can take you to get it done tomorrow. We could go right now, if you want." He gets a sudden image inside his head of Lorna in her stroller, cranky and crying and making a huge fuss, and backtracks quickly: "Actually, let's go in a couple hours, once Lorna's done with her nap."

"I don't know." Charles reaches up, starts running his hand through his hair, then grimaces and lowers his hand again. "Would it be possible for you to — do you think you could cut it for me?"

"We can afford five bucks for a haircut," Erik says, and now it's his turn to roll his eyes. Five bucks might have made a difference a year and a half ago, and Erik would have definitely appreciated the sentiment then over some of Charles' wackier money-saving ideas, but considering they're sponging off Sharon for basically everything right now anyway, it's not really all that helpful now.

"That is not the issue," Charles says.

Erik almost says, 'Well, what _is_ the issue?'' but there's only a few things it could be: the crowds thing, the having to be driven instead of driving himself thing, or the not wanting to hear people's idiotic thoughts about his wheelchair thing. Erik knows from experience that there's not much he can do about it, no matter which thing it is today. If he says it'll be fine, Charles won't believe him; if he tells Charles he's being stupid, Charles will either yell at him and cry (bad), or go hide in the bedroom and not cry (worse). Either way, Erik would end up feeling like the world's biggest asshole.

So instead, he just sighs and says, "Yeah, okay. I guess I can try. But I'm not giving you a refund if you don't like the way it turns out."

*

While Charles washes his hair in the bathroom, Erik gets the supplies together in the kitchen. If they make a habit out of this, he'll buy some clippers like the ones his mom has, but for now a comb, a pair of scissors, and a couple of towels should work just fine.

At least, he thinks so. He's never actually cut anyone's hair before. His mom used to cut his hair at home all the time when he was a kid — still cuts his hair now if he makes the mistake of going over there when his hair isn't exactly the way she wants it — but he never paid that much attention to her methods.

Charles takes forever. Erik makes himself a snack while he waits, then, when Charles has been shut up in the bathroom for half an hour, he raps lightly on the door. "You still alive in there?"

"I'll be out in a minute," Charles calls back.

A few minutes later, Charles finally makes it into the kitchen. His hair looks even worse wet than it did dry. So does the shirt, which now has several dark spots where Charles' hair soaked through.

"I tried to fix it," Charles says.

Which doesn't make a lot of sense until a few minutes later when Erik picks up a comb and holds it up to Charles' head, looking for a place to start. As he looks closer, he realizes Charles' hair is a mess: frizzy, tangled, even matted in a couple places.

Okay. So that wasn't a crowds thing. It wasn't a wheelchair thing, either. It was more of an 'I don't want anyone else to know I haven't actually combed my hair in a few months' thing.

"Essentially," Charles says.

Erik jumps, almost whacking Charles upside the head with the comb in his surprise.

It's not that Charles hasn't been inside Erik's head lately — he has been, once in awhile. It just hasn't been like this. He used to listen in on Erik's thoughts all day long, he used to have a constant running commentary on them, but he hasn't done it like this, like it's still their normal, since the day of the shooting.

Erik blinks hard and clears his throat — he refuses to make a habit out of crying every time Charles does something normal again for the first time — then distracts himself by getting to work on Charles' hair.

He's not in a hurry. Charles hardly ever lets Erik get this close to him anymore, so he's going to make the most of it. It's nice. Peaceful, even. He could spend all afternoon sitting on this kitchen stool, leaning into Charles' space and tugging on his hair.

Charles, sitting with his eyes closed and his head bent forward, says, "It's still attached, you know. I'd say it could do with a little less tugging."

"Yeah, okay," Erik says. "Sorry."

He goes after the tangles more carefully after that, watching Charles now for wincing in case he hits a tender spot. First the little tangles, then the bigger ones. A little trial and error helps him figure out that it works better if he starts at the bottom instead of tackling the middle right away. It's a good thing to know — Lorna's hair isn't all that long or difficult to deal with yet, but it might be one of these days.

Erik's not sure exactly how long it takes, but eventually he manages to get all the small tangles out of Charles' hair. What's left is one big knot, right at the back of Charles' head. He fusses at it with the comb for a minute, then sets the comb on the kitchen counter and goes back to it with just his fingers, teasing it apart a few hairs at a time.

"If you find any bugs while you're there, make sure you pop them in your mouth," Charles says.

"...What?"

Charles laughs, a little ruefully. "Grooming behavior. Apes do it. They pick bugs off one another." He pauses, one of those big dramatic pauses he still doesn't realize Erik is completely on to. "And eat them."

"Well, that's not kosher," Erik answers, more because it's what his mom would say than because he cares all that much (the bacon cheeseburger he had for lunch says he really doesn't). "Anyway, you can call me an ape all you want, just so long as I get some wild monkey sex later."

When he's done untangling that last knot, Erik runs his fingers through Charles' hair a couple more times, then combs through it. He hangs one of the towels around Charles' shoulders, drapes the other across his lap and over the armrests of the wheelchair, then floats the scissors into his hand from the counter.

"Keep your eyes closed," Erik says, because that's what his mom always says before she cuts his hair, and then he starts. He doesn't really know what he's doing, so he tries not to cut off too much all at once. He snips a little off here, a little off there, trying to keep things even. He wishes he could just take it all off, leave him with a nice little buzzcut or something, but Charles would never go for that. He claims he's going to go bald by the time he's forty, that all the men in his family do, and until then he wants to make the most of the floppy look. Erik's can't see that happening — Charles has thick, full hair, not a thin spot in sight — but he's willing to settle for being able to see Charles' ears again.

Charles doesn't say anything about how no one needs to see the actual shape of his head, which is an opinion he always feels the need to share whenever Erik says or thinks the word 'buzzcut,' so he must not be in Erik's head right now.

Erik snips a little more off here, a little more off there. It's very quiet there in the kitchen, no sounds other than the _snick-snick_ of the scissors and the creaking sound the stool makes whenever Erik fidgets, or the sounds of their breathing in the still moments in-between.

"My mom used to do this for my dad," Erik says, because he's thinking about it now, but Charles won't know about it unless Erik tells him.

"What, cut his hair?"

"Yeah. She always did mine at home, but she didn't start doing his until he was laid off when I was about..." How old had he been? He remembers his mom giving him his haircut, then sitting him down at the kitchen table to do his homework while she did Dad's hair. He remembers his dad stretching out his long legs in front of the stool, remembers wondering if he himself would ever be that tall. He remembers his parents getting kind of flirty, remembers always thinking how gross and embarrassing that was; he doesn't know what he'd give to have his dad back, for them to be gross and embarrassing again. "Nine or ten. Something like that. Then he went back to work, but she kept cutting his hair at home. I asked him why, this one time, and he said he liked it better when she cut his hair. I never really got that. I thought getting a haircut at the barbershop was way more exciting. But this is nice."

Erik doesn't think he's ever said this much about his dad at once, not even to Charles. He feels weird about it, and covers up by running the comb through Charles' hair a couple more times, trimming a few more spots, then saying, "Okay, I think we're done."

"How much did you take off?" Charles says, eyes widening as he looks down at the hair all over his lap and on the floor.

"Not as much as I wanted to," Erik says. "If you don't like it, you should be able to get it fixed pretty easily. No big deal. You could just tell them you lost a bet."

He grabs the mirror up off the counter and hands it to Charles, who scrutinizes himself for a second. "Not bad," he says, then turns that scrutinizing look on Erik. "Say, if we had a hand mirror lying around this whole time, what was the purpose of taking my picture earlier?"

"Evidence," Erik says. "For blackmail, you know."

Charles raises an eyebrow at him. He looks like his old self in that moment, completely unimpressed with Erik. And as much as Erik's tried not to push him for anything, he can't help himself: he just has to lean over and into Charles' space, and press a kiss onto Charles' ear.

Charles makes a sound, a surprised little gasp, then pushes Erik away. "You shouldn't. I'm disgusting."

"No, you're not."

"Objectively."

"Not to me," Erik says, and since Charles said 'shouldn't' and not 'don't,' he dares to kiss Charles' ear again, then beneath it, then the hollow of his jaw.

"Really," Charles says, a little breathlessly, "do you even know how long it's been since I've bathed?"

"I don't care." Erik pulls back just long enough to pull the towels away and drop them on the floor so he won't get hair all over himself. He goes back to kissing Charles' neck. "You smell like shampoo, and you just had a haircut. That's good enough for me."

Then Charles starts tugging on his shirt, kissing him back, and Erik goes from leaning over the arm of the wheelchair to climbing into it, a little awkwardly, until he's straddling Charles' lap and hunching down to kiss him so Charles won't end up with a crick in his neck. And this is another first, because they've had sex since the shooting, in the dark under the covers at night, but they haven't done this yet, making out in the middle of the day, the middle of the kitchen, unplanned and spontaneous and something Erik has missed more than he would admit to himself before now.

Erik didn't want to pressure Charles, he didn't want to push, and after months of Charles not wanting Erik to touch him at all, Erik stopped even offering — but with Charles kissing him back desperately, hungrily, like he's dying to be touched, he thinks maybe he shouldn't have, maybe he should have kept putting out his hand just in case Charles ever decided to take it.

Things are just started to get heated when a shout comes from the baby's room. It's Lorna, complaining because she's up from her nap with no one to entertain her:

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

"...Shit," Erik says.

"Yes," Charles agrees. He's smiling regretfully and flushed pinker than Erik has seen him in forever. He's beautiful. He's beautiful and he's gorgeous and he's perfect — and he's still here, despite everything. "Raincheck?"

"Absolutely." Erik kisses Charles one more time, then climbs off the wheelchair and buttons his pants. "If you want to get her, I'll clean up in here."

As Charles wheels out of the kitchen, another "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" comes out of Lorna's room, louder than the last one.

Erik picks up the towels and shakes them off into the garbage can, then drapes them over a kitchen chair. As he sweeps, he hears Charles talking to Lorna and Lorna babbling back at him. He can't hear exactly what they're saying, but it's still the best sound in the world as far as he's concerned.

Once he's gotten all the hair up off the floor, Erik puts the broom away and heads into the living room, where Charles is sitting, crooning at Lorna and holding her under her armpits so her feet are planted on his thighs, bouncing her up and down. It's one of her favorite things right now. Last week she even figured out how to stand by pulling herself up on furniture. She'll be walking soon, and Erik has no idea how they're supposed to keep up with her when that happens. He can barely keep up with her when she's crawling around the apartment at the speed of light.

He can't believe how fast she's growing up already. It seems like just yesterday that they brought her home from the hospital, so tiny and so helpless. She hadn't even been able to hold her own head up — and as for Charles, he'd barely been able to transfer himself from the bed to the wheelchair without help back then. And now just look at them. They're the best thing Erik's ever seen.

Erik picks up the camera from off the coffee table and points it at the two of them. He snaps the picture just as Lorna stuffs a big clump of Charles' hair into her mouth.


	2. We Haven't Done It in Six Weeks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles and Erik haven't cleaned their apartment in a while...and they really, really should.

"Oh shit." Erik lurches out of bed, gets tangled up in the blanket and has to grab onto the dresser to keep from hitting the floor. "Oh shit. Oh fuck. Oh, _shit_."

"Erik? Are you all right? What's wrong?" Charles' voice in the dark sounds pretty worried, and when Erik waves on the lights, he turns back toward the bed to see Charles looking just as worried as he sounds as he pushes himself up into a sitting position.

"No!" Erik all but shouts, reaching to unwrap the blanket from around his legs. "No, I'm not all right. Nothing is all right. Shit."

"Is it a cramp?" Charles asks.

It's a fair enough guess, considering all the times Erik exploded to his feet with leg cramps during his last couple trimesters with Lorna, but he really doesn't feel like playing twenty questions right now. He doesn't have _time_ to play twenty questions right now.

"I wish I had a cramp. But no. I just realized my mom is going to be here to pick Lorna up in about—" Erik glances at the alarm clock, which says 5:37 a.m. in suddenly ominous red numbers "—six and a half hours."

The way Erik gestures around the room is apparently less than illuminating for Charles, because all he does is blink and say, "Yes, and? We've known that for days. I don't know why you're freaking out about it now. Christ, Erik. You almost gave me a heart attack. Now why don't you calm down and come back to bed?"

"I can't come back to bed!" Erik opens the top dresser drawer and pulls out a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. "I have to get this place clean before she shows up, or I'll never hear the end of it."

"It's fine," Charles says.

"It's disgusting," Erik says, bending over to pull on his sweatpants. "It looks like a disaster area."

"Oh, come on. It's not that bad."

But it is that bad, and the more Erik looks around the apartment, the worse he realizes it actually is. He can't remember the last time he did the dishes before they were out of plates, so not only is one side of the sink full of dirty dishes, but there are crusty pots and pans all over the counter and the top of the stove. He can't remember the last time he did a load of laundry before someone was out of underwear, so not only is the hamper overflowing, but there are dirty clothes draped all over the apartment, on the bed, the couch, the coffee table, the dressers in their room. He can't even remember the last time he took the garbage out without it being diaper-related, so there's trash all over the place, too. Most of it is takeout containers and bags from fast food places. Erik counts four Arby's bags, but they overdosed on Arby's at least a month ago.

The best that he can say about any of it is that at least the floors are clear so Charles can get around in his chair, and there's nothing sharp or poisonous or small enough to swallow within Lorna's reach. But if Erik can't remember the last time he picked up around here, he sure as hell can't remember the last time he vacuumed, scrubbed the toilet, or mopped the floor.

He remembers he was sort of managing it back in the beginning, right after Charles and Lorna came home, when they had his mom and Charles' sister over here at the time. What he can't remember is when he stopped even trying. He can't remember when he started slipping, how the apartment went from being a little bit messy to _this_. You're not trash unless you live like trash, and Erik has never lived like this.

His mom can't see this. No one can. If the wrong person gets a load of this, they're going to end up with CPS at their door an hour later. He can't picture them giving him the benefit of a doubt. They wouldn't care that Charles has been sick for a while, that things have been hard. No, all they'd see would be a couple of queers in a filthy apartment. They'd take Lorna away.

Erik grabs a garbage bag and starts stuffing trash into it as fast as he can. One and a half bags later, Charles makes it out of the bedroom. Erik feels the wheelchair approaching, but doesn't glance over until something taps him on the shoulder. He turns around and sees Charles holding his grabby stick in one hand, looking much more serious than before.

"I would never let that happen. Please calm down," Charles says. He reaches for the garbage bag with his free hand. "Now, why don't you let me take care of this so you can run down to the laundry room?"

Erik stares at him.

"This will go more quickly if you'll let me help." Charles gives the bag a little tug. "You do the laundry, I'll handle this. All right?"

"Yeah," Erik says after a moment. "Yeah, sure. Okay."

He hands the bag over and goes through the apartment picking up all the dirty clothes he can find. He shoves everything into the hamper, then drags the whole thing down to the laundry room to start six loads of laundry.

Since he's there anyway, he figures he may as well check the mail. Once he does, he wishes he hadn't: they're on second notice with the electric company again.

He knows they need to pay them. They can definitely afford to pay them—neither of them is working, but Sharon gives Charles money every month, enough to cover all the bills and then some—but Charles has never managed to pay a bill on time, and lately Erik keeps forgetting, too. Every time he pays the bills, he has to think about whose money he's paying them with. He knows he should probably be grateful that he doesn't have to choose between staying home when Charles needs him or keeping a roof over their heads, but he still hates taking her money.

When Erik gets back to the apartment after switching everything over to the dryers, there's no Charles in sight, but two bags full of garbage are tied closed on the floor. Charles' voice, however, is coming from the baby's room, and when Erik peeks in there he sees finds Charles just finishing up a diaper change.

For the next few hours, Charles keeps Lorna occupied and out of the way while Erik scrambles to make the apartment look less like a health hazard. He picks up the rest of the trash, then washes the dishes without too much crud on them and soaks the rest. He retrieves the laundry, folds everything and puts it away. He cleans out the fridge, which is extra disgusting considering there's a matzo kugel leftover from Passover tucked away in the back. He scrubs the inside of the fridge and the counters, the sink and the top of the stove, then takes on the bathtub and toilet.

When he comes back in from taking the last garbage bag out to the dumpster, Erik feels pretty good about the way the apartment looks. It's not perfect, but it's presentable, which makes it about a million times better than it was. He's hot and sweaty and gross, but he feels more accomplished right now that he has in a long time, and he still has half an hour left to get a shower.

*

"Sorry about the mess," Erik says when he answers the door and lets his mom in. "We didn't really have the chance to clean."

He's a hundred percent sure his mom knows he's full of shit, but all she says is, "It looks fine to me. Stop worrying."

"If you say so." Erik tries not to look too relieved that she's not going to call him on it. He doesn't know why everyone keeps telling him not to worry today; he has a lot to worry about, and he's not about to stop just because anyone tells him to. But at least knowing his mom isn't going to hassle him about the state of their apartment is one less thing. "Hey, why don't you sit down? Lorna and I have something to show you."

"Okay." His mom sits on the couch, laying her purse on the cushion beside her.

Erik goes over to Lorna's playpen, lifts her out, and sets her down on her feet so that they're facing the couch. He keeps hold of her hands and says, "Let's go see Grandma."

The last time they tried to walk over to Grandma when they were over at her house a couple weeks ago, it didn't exactly work out: Lorna was cranky and wouldn't cooperate, and they'd barely gone two steps before she twisted out of Erik's hand, landed on her butt, and started crying. But this time, Lorna's in a much better mood and ready to show off, and they make it across the floor without any drama.

"That's very good, sweetie!" Mom coos, clapping her hands together. "You're going to be walking all by yourself soon, yes you are."

Now hanging onto the side of the couch, Lorna beams up at her and babbles something. Erik has no idea what she's saying, but she seems pretty pleased with herself. He still can't help taking a little vicious pleasure in the fact that she cries whenever Sharon is over here, but she loves Erik's mom to pieces. Charles seems to think it's because she doesn't see Sharon that often, not to mention that she's probably picking up on Erik's body language; as far as Erik is concerned, it just means she has good taste.

After a couple minutes of being fussed over, Lorna gets bored, pulls herself over to the end of the couch, then drops down and crawls off. She gets about halfway across the floor when she realizes no one's with her and gets worried about it, at which point she turns around and heads back over to Erik.

Then Mom looks at Erik, and he knows that look. It's the look she always gives him whenever she's about to say something she knows he's not going to like.

"What?" Erik asks, hoping she's not going to give him a hard time about the apartment after all.

"Are you still looking for a job?" she asks, which is what she always asks him when he's over at her place, but he's getting the look along with it, so he must be about to get an entire lecture this time. Great. That's just what he needs today.

"I've been putting in some applications lately, yeah." He leaves out the part where 'lately' is code for 'I filled out four applications three weeks ago and turned them in. I picked up five or six more on my way home but never got around to filling them out. I think they ended up as collateral damage when I was throwing everything out earlier.'

She looks at him over the frames of her glasses. "Well, you need to find something."

"I know, Ma."

"It doesn't matter what kind of job it is. Even if you were working at McDonald's, it would be better than nothing."

"Okay, Ma," Erik says, trying not to grit his teeth. The sooner she has her say, the sooner she'll stop with the lecture. If he does anything other than agree with her, it'll just be that much worse.

It's easier to find a job when you have a job. Even if it's something like that."

"All right, Ma."

"Even if you're having trouble finding work, you need to be doing something. You shouldn't sit at home all day."

Erik could say that he's been doing plenty, that he's spent the last nine months taking care of a baby, the last year taking care of Charles in one way or another. But he doesn't want to talk about this. He doesn't want to get into it. Sure, he's been in a rut, that's obvious; it's not why he doesn't have a job. It's kind of hard to get up the enthusiasm to look for work when he already knows that he's going to lose whatever job he gets the first time Charles won't get out of bed.

He can't leave Charles alone, not when he's like that. If it were a choice between putting food on the table, between keeping food on the table and staying with him, then things would be different. But that's not how it is. Even if there's nothing Erik can really do to help Charles when he gets like that, he can at least stick around and keep him company.

He can't imagine a quicker way to get fired than telling a brand new boss that he can't come in because he has to stay home with his boyfriend. And what if it was a really good job? Something that paid well, something he liked with healthcare and vacation time and coworkers he got along with, and he lost it? He doesn't want to burn any bridges. He'd like to have some options left by the time he gets there.

But if he says any of that, his mom will get it all out of him. She'll pick at him until he blurts everything out in self-defense. And then...Erik doesn't know what would happen then, but he does know he's not interested in hearing it.

"Stop glaring at me like that," she says. "This isn't healthy. Not for you or for Charles." She looks past him and says, "Do you hear me, Charles?"

"Yes, ma'am," Charles says.

Erik didn't realize Charles had come out of the bedroom, but when he glances over his shoulder, Charles is behind him, with Lorna in his lap. She must have wandered over to him at some point without Erik even noticing.

"Would you leave Charles alone, Ma? He doesn't need you picking on him," Erik says.

"It's okay. Really," Charles says—but even before the shooting, he was a little scared of Erik's mom, always coming up with ways to avoid her as much as possible. According to him, if she doesn't see him, she can't find anything to disapprove of, and if she can't find anything to disapprove of, Erik won't have to break up with him. Which is completely ridiculous, because if she doesn't have anything concrete to pick at, she'll make something up. Not to mention that Erik has never stopped doing anything just because his mom doesn't like it, at least not anything really important. But try telling Charles that.

"I'm not trying to pick on anyone," Mom says.

"Well, you're succeeding!"

"Don't you take that tone with me, Erik."

"Yeah? Well, don't come in my house and—"

A light touch on Erik's elbow. He glances back to see Charles there.

Softly, Charles says, not to Erik, "It's been...a difficult day. Things have been a little stressful around here lately."

"I can see that," Mom says.

"That's why we asked you to take Lorna for the day, so we can have a little time to de-stress. Relax, you know."

If Erik were the one to say something like that, his mom would probably say he needs to do a little less relaxing and a little more job hunting. But instead, she says, "Well, I guess I should get going then. Lorna and I have a big day planned."

She gets up, picks up the diaper bag from beside the playpen, takes Lorna from Charles, and makes Erik hug her before they go. He gives Lorna a kiss on the top of her head, and feels a little shell-shocked when the door closes behind them, leaving him and Charles alone in the apartment. Part of him wants to run after them to make sure his baby is all right; he's convinced he can hear her crying out in the hallway.

"She is fussing a bit, but she'll calm down in a minute," Charles says. "She loves your mom. It'll be fine."

"Speaking of my mom, how did you get her to do that? You didn't..."

Charles rolls his eyes. "No, I did not 'mind whammy' your mother to get her to leave."

"Okay, good." Erik definitely wouldn't have been okay with that.

"She's worried about you, that's all."

Erik frowns. He's not the one anyone needs to be worrying about. "So, what are our plans for today, anyway?" he asks, feeling the back door of Mom's car opening in the background. "Are we going somewhere, hanging out here, or what?"

It was Charles' idea to get Mom to take Lorna for the day, Charles who thought they could use some time alone, just the two of them for once. Ever since Lorna was born, it's been the three of them. Erik's dropped Lorna off at Mom's before, but only when he needed to run errands or something and Charles was having a rough day; it wasn't recreational.

" _Oh_ ," Charles says, his face lighting up. He rolls a little closer, grabs Erik by the belt loop and gives him a tug. "I was thinking I could make good on that rain check."

He grins at Erik, cheeky, flirty. Erik's not exactly in the mood, or at least he wasn't before, but it's been a long time since Charles looked at him like that. The last time was before the shooting, when Erik was still pregnant with Lorna. Before everything changed so much that Erik can barely remember what they were like before, how they fit together back then.

"Yeah, okay. Works for me," Erik says. It's funny how quickly moods can change. He leans down over Charles and kisses him, keeps kissing him as he climbs onto the wheelchair, still being pulled by his belt loops.

He's willing to take it slow, give Charles all the time he needs to be comfortable with this, but about two minutes later, Charles tugs Erik's shirt out of his pants, runs his hands up his flank, then reaches down to grope his ass.

Erik was already excited, but it's been a while since anyone grabbed his ass, so that's all it takes to get him hard. When Charles gives him another squeeze, he yelps and just about comes in his pants.

Charles chuckles, low and so damned sexy. "Let's take this to the bedroom."

"Here is good," Erik says. He's only been in Charles' lap for a few minutes, but now he can't imagine getting up long enough to walk anywhere.

This time, Charles doesn't squeeze his ass, but strokes it instead, giving Erik goosebumps in an entirely different way. "I was planning on blowing you. That would be a lot easier to manage in bed..."

Erik expected some sort of handjob, maybe a little fingering if they could get his pants off in time; he didn't realize a blowjob was on the table. He's not about to say no.

"The bedroom sounds good," he says. "In fact, the bedroom sounds great. Beds are good."

Once they make it to the bedroom, Charles pulls off his shirt, which is great, but then acts like he's going to drop it on the floor, which is in a completely different universe from great.

"The hamper is _right there_ ," Erik says, unable to keep his mouth shut about it even though his hard-on is screaming at him not to fuck this up.

Charles glances at him with wide eyes. He looks at the shirt, then back at Erik, then slowly folds it and sets it on the bedside table.

"Better?"

"Way better."

Charles laughs and transfers from his chair to the bed. Erik watches him go, the way the muscles move under his skin, feeling like he has permission to stare for once. Once Charles is propped up against the headboard, Erik undresses. He's aware of Charles' eyes on him, and wishes he'd stripped while Charles was focusing on getting into bed. It's not like Charles doesn't already know what he looks like, it's not like he doesn't wander around the house in his underwear all the time, but this is different. This is Charles watching Erik the way he always used to watch him, when everything was so different, and so much easier.

Erik can't help wondering what Charles sees when he looks at him. He's lost all the baby weight and then some, but still, it's not like he's been working out lately. Not unless you count pushing Lorna's stroller down the street. And his stretchmarks are never going to go away.

He climbs into bed with Charles, and then it doesn't really matter anymore, how much they've both changed, because Charles reaches for him, draws him in, kisses him. They're not hiding together in the dark, this time; and maybe what they're seeing in the daylight isn't perfect, but maybe it never was before, either.

Charles' hands roam over Erik's back, his chest, his shoulders, his ass, his thighs, as Erik kisses Charles' ear, his jaw, his neck, wet, breathy kisses that make Charles gasp, his hands going still on Erik's chest. Then Erik sucks his earlobe into his mouth, scrapes it between his teeth, and Charles groans; his ears have always worked for him, and they're good for a few minutes here, too, until Erik lets his earlobe go.

"Where should I touch you?" he asks. He's pretty sure Charles would have taken his pants off if anything below the waist were going to happen, but other than that he's not really sure.

Charles hesitates, like he doesn't know either. Hell, he probably doesn't; they haven't exactly spent much time experimenting together, and Erik doesn't know how much he might have tried on his own.

"You should keep doing that, then maybe play with my nipples," he says finally, not quite stammering and not quite meeting Erik's eyes.

"Okay."

Erik pulls Charles' earlobe back into his mouth, sucks on it as hard as he can, until Charles is panting beneath him. Then he makes his way down Charles' neck and chest, kissing and sucking, feeling Charles fidget beneath his hands and mouth. The second he takes a nipple into his mouth, Charles goes rigid beneath him, and his hands clench on Erik's shoulders. He's so still and so quiet all of a sudden, not even breathing. That used to be a pretty good reaction, Erik remembers, but Charles going stiff, Charles holding his breath now could also mean something happened, that he's having a back spasm, something like that, something that means Erik should stop.

"No," Charles says. "No, I'm fine. Keep going."

Erik keeps going, sucking on Charles' nipple until fingers in his hair pull him up and guide him over to his other nipple. He goes back and forth, back and forth, and Charles' breathing gets harsher and harsher. He twitches every so often, and when Erik glances at his face he sees that he's completely red and flushed, the way he always used to get.

It turns him on, even more than he was already turned on, so much that the only reason he doesn't touch himself is that he really, really wants Charles to do it. Even more, it makes him feel powerful, which is good for a change; he can't remember the last time he felt like he was in control of anything, but if he can still make Charles feel like this, well, that has to count for something, doesn't it?

"All right," Charles says after a while. He pushes Erik's head away, relaxes beneath him. "I think I'm done."

"What do you mean, you _think_?" Erik says skeptically, then kind of wants to slap himself.

Charles doesn't really look at him, the same way he doesn't look at him when they have to talk about anything he needs help with, anything he's having trouble with, anything he can't do anymore, anything new he has to do. "Well, it was good. And then it stopped. I'm not sure what to call that, but I don't think we're going to do any better today."

"Okay," Erik says. He leans in and kisses Charles on the cheek. He's so hard by now that his cock feels like an iron bar under his skin; he really hopes he didn't kill the mood.

"You didn't." Charles runs his hands up and down Erik's arms now. "Come here."

Erik kisses him again, this time on the mouth.

Charles kisses him back, but only once. "Mmm. That's lovely, but it's not what I meant. Come _here_. Let me take care of you for once."

He looks down at Erik's cock and licks his lips, and that's it. Erik thought he might feel a little bad about waving his junk around in Charles' face when there hasn't been even a little bit of action happening for Charles in that area, but now all he can think of is how much he wants this.

He scrambles forward until he's straddling Charles' chest, close enough to pull himself up further by holding onto the headboard, at which point Charles grabs Erik's waist with both hands and pulls him closer still. Then he sticks his tongue out and tastes Erik's cock right at the tip, making Erik's balls tighten as his knuckles go white on the headboard. His entire body vibrates with the effort it takes not to thrust his way into Charles' mouth; he almost comes right then and there. Someone groans, a choking, almost-sob of a sound, and Erik doesn't realize until a few seconds later that that was him.

Charles gives him a few seconds, then wraps his lips around the head of Erik's cock. He pulls Erik even closer, taking in more, then pushes him away. Closer, away, a slow and steady rhythm.

Erik tries not to move, tries not to breath. He doesn't try to be quiet, knows he can't be, so instead he tries to ignore his own groans and harsh breathing, the way, "Oh yeah, oh fuck, oh yeah" is the only thing he ever manages to say. He triesto close his eyes, thinking that he won't last any time at all if he's actually looking at Charles. Then he remembers how long it's been since he got to see this, so he keeps his eyes open instead, doing his best to memorize everything: his shiny wet cock sliding in and out of Charles' mouth, Charles' cheeks hollowing as he sucks, the eagerness in his eyes as he glances up at Erik's face and back down again. His entire face is flushed and red. He looks like he feels powerful, too.

Erik feels his orgasm building, and this time he doesn't try to stop it; instead, he starts to thrust, sticking with the rhythm Charles set at first, then going a little rougher, a little faster, chasing after his orgasm as Charles holds onto him. Not holding him back, not trying to slow him down, but just hanging on for the ride.

At the end, Erik does close his eyes, and for a second the everything narrows down to the warm suction around his cock, the wet, slapping sound of it, his own final, stupid moan; and he comes, jerking forward helplessly one last time and pulsing into Charles' mouth.

Erik pulls away from Charles, then collapses beside him. When he gets his breath back, he leans back over so he can kiss Charles again. "Hi."

"Hi," Charles says. He looks pleased with himself, smiling, smug. Well, he should be.

They kiss a little more, but the next couple minutes involve more fidgeting than anything, trying to find a position that's comfortable for both of them. Erik slings his leg over Charles' legs without realizing it until a few minutes later, but Charles doesn't seem to mind.

Erik dozes for a little while with his head on Charles' shoulder, Charles' hand trailing lazily up and down his back. When he wakes up, Charles is watching him, looking a little more thoughtful, a little more serious.

Erik sits up, feeling a little groggy and like he might be working on a headache. "What?"

"I've been thinking," Charles says slowly, "for a while now, not just today..."

"Yeah?"

Charles chews his lip for a second, then says, hesitant, quietly enough that Erik has to strain to hear him, "I've been thinking I could go back and finish my Master's."

Erik just stares. He can hardly believe what he's hearing. Charles has spent the past nine months since he came home from the hospital barely existing, not wanting to go anywhere or do anything unless someone makes him. Erik doesn't think he's so much as mentioned his Master's, or any of the other plans he used to have, since the shooting happened a year ago.

"I've also been thinking about getting some hand controls for my car," Charles continues, talking faster now. "So you wouldn't have to drive me every day, you know," which is code for 'So I wouldn't have to ride with anyone, because I _hate_ it.' "There's a class I'd have to take, but it should be doable." He pauses, takes a deep breath, lets it out. "What do you think?"

Erik feels like he's letting out a breath too, one he's been holding for the entire past year. "Yeah," he says, feeling like he's about to cry and not really sure why. "Yeah. I think that's a great idea." He swallows. "So, what, you'd be going back for the spring semester?"

It's October now, with January coming up quick. Maybe that's why Charles hesitates again. "I was thinking next fall, actually."

"Well, I think you should go back in January, if it's not too late to get registered or whatever. I bet it isn't." Erik's spent months and months trying not to push too much, and he doesn't want to do it now either, but if Charles waits until next August, that's so much more time for him to sit and stew, even change his mind. The hell is he going to back out of this, now that he's put it out there.

"Maybe," Charles says, looking thoughtful again, almost excited.

Erik's excited too; excited, thankful, but relieved more than anything else.

Between that and the handjob he gets about twenty minutes later, he's in such a good mood that he's barely even annoyed when his mom brings Lorna back and hands him a copy of the classifieds with a whole bunch of job ads circled.


End file.
